Remember Coatesville, Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5

Tuesday night in Coatesville more than 1,000 angry people showed up at the 9/10 center for a Coatesville Area School District board meeting.

At the heart of the meeting were the retirement of Superintendent Richard Como and the resignation of former Athletic and Activities Director Jim Donato.

Following Sunday’s Daily Local News exclusive story of racially-charged text messages between the two men the center was packed with people looking for blood. The school board was ready to accept the retirement and resignation and send them on their way. The crowd, however, was not. It wanted Como and Donato fired to at least send a message that this sort of horrific behavior would not be tolerated.

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The meeting lasted for hours with two school board members conferenced in but never getting the chance to vote. At the end of the circus-like meeting the board hastily voted 6-1 to accept the retirement and resignation and a bunch of other agenda items bolting for the door before the crowd could figure out what had happened.

In the end the people in attendance were not any happier and in fact, felt betrayed by the board’s actions.

We agree and feel that the Coatesville Area School Board let down the public including the faculty and others who work for the district, the students and their families. We still believe that this board didn’t hold Como and Donato responsible and that they now need to be held accountable.

Last Sunday we called for the entire board to resign. We still believe that their holding office is not in the best interests of the people who live within the boundaries of the Coatesville Area School District. They fumbled this entire incident so then how can we trust them to handle anything moving forward?

But rather than a clean sweep by removal we call on the thousand or more who attended Tuesday’s meeting along with the few thousand members of the newly-formed coalition to continue to mount challenges to those school board members up for re-election.

The seats of Tonya Thames Taylor, Laurie Knecht, William Sweigart and Joe Dunn are expiring. Only Taylor and Knecht are running again.

We urge every citizen to register to vote and to vote. The only way to change the behavior of the school board is to change those who are on it. And while the thousand people were calling for heads to roll – correctly we might add – the way to do it is at the ballot box.

You all felt heated emotion on Tuesday night and wanted justice. Cooler heads have prevailed since but the aim is the same. Change is needed – but we support doing it the organized way.